The rise of the 'pay to be featured' economy on instagram

Despite a few recent imitators, Instagram remains the most popular platform for photographers to share their work to a global audience.

Yet with so many users, gaining followers on Instagram is increasingly difficult. One of the results of this has been the rise of 'hubs' that share users' work in exhange for exposure. Some of these hubs have huge audiences with hundreds of thousands of followers, and having work featured by them can be a great way to not only increase exposure, but also gain some of those followers we all want.

However a recent trend is how some of these hubs approach creatives and ask for payment for a feature, like photographer David Crewe who has shared his experience in a recent blog post.

Crewe explains that he was contacted about his men's fashion work, and was initially excited, until he read their pitch.

"This is what frustrates me beyond belief. Making it as a freelance artist, is tough enough on it's own, but when you have these accounts who buy fake users to boast about reach you'll get, it makes things harder to achieve," he says.

Frustratingly, it appears the the company grew by over 20k followers over night back in September, suggesting they purchased users to populate the account.

"It's funny also as when you look at their accounts, they often have less interactions and likes than the users they spam do," he says.

"It's a terrible way to grow a brand/business and following, but, it does beg the question if there are enough people paying, and enough people actually gaining followers from it to make it commercially viable and profitable?"

"I believe this is a huge scam, and causes the real reach of your accounts to be messed with since Facebook and Instagram keep changing the way hashtags, shares, and the actual timeline work to combat these spam/scam accounts, which in the long run, just reduces the reach of everyone on the platform."

What do you think? Is this an immoral use of Instagram, or just the economy responding to demand?

Thanks to David Crewe for letting us share his views. You can see more of David's work on his Instagram and website.